The TPR-S strategy provides a framework for taking instruction to the proverbial "next level."
TPR-S tools give teachers potent and powerful methods for:
- Increasing students' memory of concepts by overcoming the tendency to remember only the first, last and different in a lecture
- Building natural mnemonic devices for teachers' lectures
- Engaging students' imagination and creativity for even the most boring topics (the standards-based curriculum that you are ordered to teach.)
- Involving students in their own learning
- Easy integration with the Mutual Storytelling Technique for promoting mature student mental health and emotional wellness
- Added opportunities to map other content-area concepts (especially math and health) into any lesson
- Added opportunities to provide positive, indirect suggestion for a positive student mind set
TPR-S is an instructional strategy that is so natural that we wonder why we never thought of it
Besides these benefits, TPR-S requires only the props and learning materials that are on hand, meaning that implementing TPR-S strategies requires minimal "out-of-personal-pocket" expense.
There are some downsides to implementing this strategy, even if the TPR-S strategy sounds like a teacher's "dream come true answer and antidote" to many of the issues plaguing modern instruction.
Sidebar
(Teaching to the test being only one of those distractions.)
A Strategy that Time Forgot
Actually, it is only modern education that has forgotten about the TPR-S strategy.
In eras past, before print (books) and electronic memory systems (computers, Internet); the most common instructional practice was to both narrate and act out communication…signal, punctuate, pantomime…with gestures, facial expressions and body movements.
And as teachers digressed (they didn't have rigid schedules and a timeline for coaching students for the high-stakes test), stories of past experiences, related to the item of study, naturally
Olden-times-teachers (or tutors) prided themselves in their personal wisdom, and prided themselves in their ability to communicate that wisdom with stories.
What modern, output-focused factory educators consider to be "time-wasters, tangents, bird-walks" can serve academic goals once a teacher understands the power of TPR-S and employs the strategies in a focused method.
And, storytelling is seated deep in humanity's collective consciousness, probably predating words and the development of a spoken language. This means that stories seep into the unconscious regions of the human mind and affect learning in multiple ways.
Far-Reaching Benefits
Although TPR-S can be used to enhance the memory and experience of literature, and to activate active learning before a story (or novel) is read; TPR-S is usable for every subject. For example:
- Convert the steps of a complex math operation into a story, connect the vocabulary with specific physical actions (TPR)…or better yet, allow students to devise and share their own stories related to this operation
- Map out the names, features and functions of multiple areas of the brain, create characters and a fantasy-type story of magic and intrigue with the action associated with countries, towns or villages with the names of these areas of the brain
- Change the components of a complex economics formula to characters with traits that represent the relationships of the formula
- Learn the actions, sounds, vocabulary and rules of a foreign language by extending basic TPR with story lines and natural interaction
Sidebar
TPR, TPR-S, and the Mutual Storytelling Technique represent a full-bodied, comprehensive approach to accelerate learning.
These approaches build high-level, stress-free, creative capacities in our students. And, these methods decrease the amount of work, effort and stress that teachers experience in delivering instruction.
Fables, Fairy Tales. Tall Tales and Folk Tales for a Modern Generation
Fables are stories about animals that teach moral lessons.
But, stories can be about anything and teach lessons.
For example, the "Ant and the Grasshopper" fable could be about the "Hard Drive" and the "CPU." The "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" could be about safe files on the hard drive and about Trojans (similar to computer viruses).
Fairy Tales contain some bit of magic and some bit of reality. Fairy tales can be worked into all manner of topics, especially ones that relate to human behavior…history, government, economics, business and politics.
For example, a political campaign exemplifies most (or all) of the characteristics of a fairy tale.
Sidebar
We'll skip the obvious relationship to the "Tall Tale" and Myth because the satire is too easy, uncreative and obvious.
For example: The Story of the "Three Pigs" could refer to 1.) weak, 2.) better and 3.) solid methods taught in an economics class that describe how businesses insure themselves against loss.
Tall Tales are stories where the main character or hero obsesses uncommonly beneficial traits. Paul Bunyan is a huge lumberjack with a colossal blue ox, Pecos Bill ropes a tornado with a giant rattlesnake turned lariat, John Henry pounds a hammer on a steel drill pin faster than a machine.
An Example of a teaching tall tale might be a scientist that can invents plenty of marvelous, labor-saving devices including the light bulb and the phonograph. Point out that the scientist tried 20,000 experiments before creating a light bulb that functioned.
Sidebar
To discover that Thomas Edison was not the inventor of the light bulb, and that he even lost a patent infringement lawsuit in Great Britain concerning the light bulb examine a real-world timeline.
Non-Tall Tale Light Bulb Invention Timeline
What Edison developed was a complete, affordable and practical lighting system.
Folk Tales are extracts from the culture of primitive (and not so non-modern) peoples. A story that is a fairy tale for one group may transform into a folk tale when exported to another group.
An example of a folk tale adapted to a teachable moment might be the story of the Dutch Traders purchasing the Island of Manhattan for $24 worth of beads. In fact, some scholars believe that a "sale" never occurred because what the indigenous tribes were trading away was the right to use the island, their vocabulary had no meaning for the concept of selling land because all lands belong to the Great Spirit. This might be a case of renters overpowering the landlord and stealing the land.
A saga or Odyssey are arduous exploits or journeys that require perseverance before a goal is achieved.
The saga of a political or a human rights campaign, with setbacks, treachery, lies and promises, elation and let down fits this story model.
Nursery Rhymes are ditties that children learn. For example: "Three Blind Mice."
Three Blind Mice can become Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin…and Hitler can become the farmer's wife in a TPR-S teachable moment. And such a moment, Hitler in old-fashioned peasant farmer's wife attire chasing a cigar-smoking, bald mouse, a wheel-chair mouse doing "wheelies" as he escapes, and a mouse with a red star on his oversized military hat makes the issue memorable. And, this could all be happening underneath the table as the real characters dine on English fish and chips, Russian Caviar, American hamburgers with German sauerkraut. You get the idea
Sidebar
If you catch the concept of mental pictures associated with a storyline as driving attention, memory and retrieval of information, you understand one of the keys to Master Teacher performance.
Summary
Total Physical Response - Story (TPR-S) forms the backbone of effective teaching, whether the strategies are intuitive or learned.
TPR-S weaves its way into so many other "theoretical approaches" that the rock-solid underpinnings of TPR-S can be lost in the buzz, flash, and hand-waving by the proponents of each "fad-de-jour" "new-innovative-magic-bullet-obsoletes-all-others" re-packaged teaching strategy.
But, understanding the simplicity and power of TPRS-S brings Master Teachers to masterful communication and effective instruction.
But, don't keep this learning method a "secret." At least share the power of the strategy and the ease of the process with your students.
Your students will appreciate how this one idea streamlines their study…while strengthening their memory and recall.
Perhaps the decreased stress and increased positive student outcomes that result from implementing TPR-S will make each workday seem like a "too good to be true" Fairy Tale to you.
